Back to Basics

Chapter 2 – Oozma Kappa Reunion

Terry woke up earlier than Terri the next morning. It was only 7 o'clock, but Terry didn't feel quite as tired as he normally does at this early hour. He also was hearing voices come from their living room and he wanted to figure out who would be up this early. Terry decided that he wasn't going to sleep for much longer, so he gently rubbed his brother's head.

Terri slowly opened up his eyes. He was wondering what was rubbing his head. He smiled as he figured out it was Terry who was doing. "Mmm… that feels nice. But do you really have to wake me up to do it?"

Terry smirked. "Yes, I do. I hear voices out in the living room and I was wondering who could be up this early."

Terri turned to his left to see that it was only 7. "Oh, you woke me up at seven! Go back to bed."

Terry shifted his weight so that Terri would be forced off of his pillow. He then tried to get the both of them as close to the edge of the bed as possible. "Come on, sleepy head. We have a bit of a long day ahead of us, and I don't want you being all sluggish if you oversleep."

Terri sighed, but eventually gave Terri a smile in return. "Fine. Besides, it's better to be woken up by you than by a stupid alarm clock. Can you believe that people actually use those things?"

Terry chuckled as they got out of bed. "Yes, I can. Sometimes an alarm is needed to wake up such a sound sleeper. Remember when you used to be a heavy sleeper."

Terri rolled his eyes. "An earthquake wouldn't be able to wake me up. I don't even know how I grew out of it, but it happened."

"By the way, I have to thank you."

Terri gave Terry a confused look. "For what?"

"You didn't snore once all night. I actually had a fantastic night's sleep, and it sound like you had one, too."

Terri nodded. "Yeah, I did actually. Any other day, I'd probably be whacking you with a pillow for waking me up this early."

Terry rolled his eyes. "Just be glad that I didn't sign up for any 8 o'clock classes like I said I was going to."

"Trust me, I am. I need my beauty sleep sometimes."

Terry smiled. "Well, clearly it's working. You're a handsome fellow."

Terri blushed deeply. "Aw… thanks. You aren't too shabby yourself." Terri opened the door with his upper hand. As he did, he was greeted with a couple of familiar smiles.

"Hey, guys! Nice to see you again," Sulley said to the tired twins. Mike gave them a similar smile.

Terry and Terri looked at each other and smiled before going in to hug Sulley and Mike. They also gave a polite 'good morning' to Don, who was giving out coffee to all of the early-risers.

"What are you guys doing here so early?" Terri asked.

Mike sat down and took a sip of his coffee. "Sulley and I weren't allowed to take the whole night off at Monsters Incorporated, so we thought we would come here earlier so we can spend the day with you guys, go back to work, then come back again tomorrow."

Sulley rubbed his eyes as he took a longer sip of his coffee. "Clearly, as the early-riser of the group, Mike was the one who made this plan." Sulley took in a big yawn. "But it's still great to see you guys."

Terry smiled. "And it's great to see you."

Terri waved his hands and asked, "Why don't we whip you up something to eat? How does eggs sound?"

Sulley and Mike looked at each other and smiled. Mike looked back at the Perry twins and said, "Eggs would be great. Thanks, guys."

Terri and Terry nodded and went to the kitchen to get to work on their breakfast. As they got their ingredients together, Terry gave a toothy smile to his brother. "Well, this is a nice change of pace for you, Terri."

Terri briefly looked back at Terry before returning his focus on putting eggs in a pan. "Why do you say that?"

"Just five minutes ago, you were having a rough time getting out of bed, and now you're happy as a clam, making eggs for your friends."

Terri blushed. "It's not anything special. I'm just trying to do something nice for Mike and Sulley. They're our guests, and they probably haven't eaten breakfast yet."

Terry chuckled. "I'm not trying to make you blush, Terri. I'm just saying that it's nice that you can immediately change your mood to make your friends feel welcome."

"Well, I'm not the only one who does it. You do it with your friends, too. Not to mention the fact that you do it with me all the time."

"How so?" Terry asked as he flipped the eggs in the pan.

Terri smiled, remembering some of his childhood. "Well, I can use yesterday and today as a bunch of examples. You convince me to go back to a major I actually like, yell at the registrar lady for being mean to me, and then you wake me up early so that I won't feel groggy later."

Terry blushed, not even taking into account how much he actually does for his brother. "Well, you're my shorter, more sensitive twin brother. I-i… I feel like I'm obligated to make you feel better whenever you're feeling down."

Terri smirked. "Like that time you tackled a monster for making fun of my dancing last year."

Terry pointed at Terri and said sternly, "Hey, that guy had it coming to him. Anyone who goes through all the trouble to look up the words "egregious" and "deplorable" in the dictionary to describe your dancing deserves to be tackled."

Terri chuckled. "You actually remembered what they said?"

Terry put his hand on the back of his neck. "Heh… yeah. As soon as I got home after that, I looked them up in the dictionary to make sure that I actually tackled them for a good reason. Truth is, I didn't know what egregious or deplorable meant either. Some English major I am."

Terri gave Terry a very welcoming smile. "Well, you used your English skills to know that those words were actually mean. And I appreciate it all the same that you tackled those guys for me. It gave me a bit of a smile."

Terry placed a couple of the finished eggs onto a plate. He turned his head towards Terri and said, "You're welcome. Just know that that's going to happen for the next while. Perhaps until we die or something like that."

Terri chuckled. "Way to turn something happy into something morbid."

"I wouldn't have it any other way." Terry placed the rest of the eggs onto the plate and seasoned them with a bit of salt and pepper before placing it onto the kitchen table. "Alright, guys. Dig in."

Don, Mike and Sulley smiled as they smelled the eggs from the kitchen. They sat down at the table and began poking into the eggs with the forks that Terri just gave them all. They all took a bite.

Sulley smiled, satisfied. "I don't know if this is just my hungry stomach talking to me, but these are actually really amazing right now."

"Yeah, I agree," Mike said, before plunging his fork into another set of eggs.

Don shook his head as he swallowed his first few bites. "Oh, no. It's not just your hungry stomach talking. Terri and Terry are the better cooks of the house. They can definitely cook up better stuff than I can any day."

Terri and Terry sat down across from Don, but decided to not to eat anything. Terry shook his head and said, "You can cook, Don. You just need to try at it a little longer until you get the taste you want. Terri and I must have burnt so many things when we were growing up."

Terri groaned. "Now if only we JUST burnt the food and not… anything else."

Mike stared blankly at Terri and asked, "Uh… what did you two burn exactly?"

Terry smirked. "Don't worry about it. It's not important." Terry exchanged looks with Mike and Sulley, who decided to just drop the conversation. "So… I heard you both recently got promoted to scarers at Monsters Inc. What's that like?"

Sulley swallowed his eggs before putting his fork down. "It was a rough first week figuring out how they worked things there. It's pretty different."

Mike nodded. "Yeah. Sulley's a natural scarer, and he gets the screams we need. But we just aren't quite up to the standards of any of the older scarers."

Don nodded. "Well, you two shouldn't think that it's going to be instantaneous. You've only been doing it for what… a week now?"

Sulley nodded. "Yeah, we're not too worried about it. Like Mike said, I get the screams we need. We'll only improve from there."

"But enough about us," Mike said enthusiastically. "All we have is stories about us being in the cafeteria and the mailroom. What about you guys? How has your scare training been?"

"Oh, I feel it's been going really well," Don started. "That Professor Knight fellow really knows his stuff. He even accommodates for an old guy like me."

Sulley smiled and nodded. "Yeah, he'll set you up. He's a really good guy to people who really have it in them to scare. You clearly have the drive for it,"

Mike looked at the twins and asked, "What about you two? I recently rewatched a tape of the Scare Games and I saw your guys' scare at the Scare Simulator. I still think it's really revolutionary what you two did."

Don looked at Mike. "What did they do? I didn't really get to see."

"When they entered the room, they kind of looked like a human. Then they kicked out their tentacles, showed that they had four arms, and then showed that they had two heads. It's like the transformation from a kid's brother or sister to their worst nightmare."

Terry and Terri gave a similar reaction, blushing and putting their hands at the back of their neck. "It really wasn't all that special," Terry said.

"Eh, well… tell me about how the Scare program is treating you."

Terri blankly looked at Mike and Sulley. "We… actually just went to the Registrar building to change our majors back to how they were before?"

Sulley gave a confused look to the twins. "What? Don't you like scaring?"

Terry nodded. "Yeah, scaring was nice for a little while, but we realized it just wasn't for us. Terri missed being active with his dancing, and well… I missed my "boring" English major."

Terri chuckled, knowing that Terry only said that because of what he said yesterday.

Mike nodded. "Well, I guess scaring isn't for anyone. I guess I'm glad you guys are going back to what you like."

Terry smiled and nodded. "Yeah." Terri and Terry looked at each other. After a bit of staring, Terry turned back to the rest of the monsters and said, "Well… we should probably get the rest of ourselves ready."

Terri and Terry then excused themselves from the room. They went back into their own room and grabbed a simple red shirt to wear for the day. They then slithered into the bathroom before turning on the water for the shower.

The two stripped out of their shirt and stepped into the shower one the water was warm enough. They allowed themselves to succumb to the heat of the water and the steam before they began rubbing their scalps to get out the sweat and muck from the previous day.

"Do you think that we'll both be able to get back into our majors, okay?" Terri asked. "You know… without any more discrimination."

Terry sighed. "I thought we agreed last year that we wouldn't talk to each other while we're in the shower."

"I know, but I feel that this is a pretty important topic. Also, I'm scared that we're going to have to stay in the Scare program… as ironic as that sounds."

Terry lowered his hands to his side. "I don't think you should worry about something like that. You'll definitely get into the Dance major because of how well you dance. No one can deny that your skills are better than anybody else's."

"Do you really think that, or are you just trying to make me feel better?"

Terry stared at his shorter brother. "Are you kidding? Terri, I wouldn't ever lie to you, especially when it comes to something that you like. You're dancing is great, even when I'm not dedicated enough to help you."

Terri blushed. "I'm sure that you would be a good dancer too if you just tried a little bit."

"Heh… we are two different people in the same body, I guess. Maybe I can participate in one of your dance routines one of these days."

Terri couldn't help himself as his head bounced forward and kissed Terry on the cheek. "You're an amazing brother, you know that?"

Terry pressed his hand up against his cheek, covering up the place where Terri had kissed him. "No, I didn't know that. And… although we have the 'no kissing' rule, I guess I can allow it for this occasion."

"Good, because I'm giving you another one." Before Terry could even respond, Terri turned his head just enough so that Terri could kiss him on the lips.